That one time I rode on Amtrak.

I never really bought into the sentiment of those Lionel train commercials. Have you ever seen those? Their propaganda touts this concrete belief that Americans have some highly wrought love affair with trains.

They’re usually spread all over the airwaves around this time, each year. Because nothing says Christmas quite like the stumble-trap of a miniature railroad system circling hour after hour around the base of your tree.

My grandmother, she’s 93 as of yesterday, and she had this train set that she would year-in-year-out place around the Christmas tree, letting it silently circle on its tracks, beneath the Douglas Fir.  Inevitably, she’d forget that she had put a train set around the Christmas tree and would trip over it, repeatedly, each time remarking how dangerous it was to put such a train set around a Christmas tree, in the first place.

I’m not sure where her insistence on this particular tradition stems from, but it’s as clockwork as the Breaking of the Egg Nog Two-Cup Rule, which happens just as soon as Aunt Rub gets to town, and manages to get all of herself in that brave wheelchair and swaddled into the den, and then parked in the corner between the brick hearth and the game cabinet.  She gives but one gift, each year, “[...] for the family,” she says, and that gift is a new boxcar to add to the impending pitfall that was the train set.

Well, that and her company. So, a gift and a half, I guess.

Despite this, and the thousands of tales that I’ve collected in my lifetime, which continually spring forth from every family holiday, I developed no especial attraction for trains.

Or egg nog.

But, I did, even though I wasn’t aware of it at the time, begin to harbor a slight, festering desire to actually ride a train. A bona fide train.

Which led to my embarking on such a trip with America’s premier railway system known as Amtrak, this time last year. Not to be confused with Amway. Also, by “premier,” I mean, The Only Railway System in America.

First of all, I’d like to point out that trains are expensive. I accepted that, though, because I’d decided if I was going to take a train, I would need a sleeper car. (That’s where the money is made).

Next, I had to settle on a location. It just so happened that a friend of mine, at the time, was debuting a new musical he’d written, at the University of Michigan, and since I’d never been to Michigan (indeed, I wasn’t sure it was even a real place and/or was in Canada), I chose Ann Arbor, phoned ahead and told him I was “on my way. Riding the rails, I am.”

Enjoy that, he said. I’ll see you at midnight.

That’s another thing I’d like to point out: trains do not like to run on a conveniently timed schedule, especially not when traveling long distances.

If you’re visiting someone far away, they will feel the exact same amount of pain you did while en route because they will have to wait up until your train arrives. Thankfully, my friend was jovial and looking forward to the visit.

So, was I. I was riding a train, for crying out loud. For seventeen hours. For seventeen hours I was riding this train.

Somewhere in Missouri, I decided I needed to take a bath. I had, up to this point, an OK-I-think-I-could-enjoy-first-class-despite-the-claustrophobia attitude, and also Seasons 4 and 5 of The Golden Girls. Bea, Rue, Estelle, Betty, and I could get through just about anything.

Until it dawned on me that I couldn’t take a bath. It’d have to be a shower.

Well, I thought, that’s fine. Hot water is hot water.

Which leads me to another point I’d like to make: trains do not have extensive hot water resources. I have never been and never will be a fan of a cold shower. But, what’s even worse, is waking up from a fitful night of “sleep” (contrary to my popular belief, the rocking of the train does not encourage a good night’s rest), and standing naked in the middle of an already cold, steel box with a thin veneer of plastic on the walls and a large drain in the middle of the floor waiting while the water finally heats up to a Can’t This Do For Now temperature and then immediately loses all warmth and becomes a spray of ice.

This is, as far as I know, the complete and utter opposite of Hot Water.

Add to that, this: the “shower area” consisted of a crawl space totaling perhaps fifteen inches in width, length, and height. It was small, you see. There were no shelves, obviously, and only one small bench, so slick that anytime the train jerked, which was all the time, every piece of dry clothing I had slid off the bench and directly into the cold shower with me.

Plus, the complimentary towel was about the size of a King James. It left nothing to the imagination…and I have a big imagination.

When I finally tired of my struggle to be clean, another problem reared its ugly, ugly head.

I couldn’t figure out how to turn the shower off.

I tried and tried and tried…I read the diagram they had posted on the shower wall, indicating in large, who-couldn’t-figure-this-out lettering accompanied by those ubiquitous stick figures, who I imagine had hot water, but it was of no use. The water would not be turned off.

I had a handful of dirty clothes, clean boxer briefs (which were wet), a toiletries bag, and an envelope for a towel, basically, so what was one to do?

I slid open the pocket door, stepped out of the shower, and ran like hell all the way back to my cabin, leaving the water running. That’s what one does.

For future reference, though, one should at least take time to dry one’s feet. I left a puddle trail the size of Peoria (which I’m sure we were passing through at the time), all the way from the shower to my cabin door.

Sigh.

In short…I had the time of my life.

Related Posts:

• “I’m the freaking boss of TV, just so you know.”
• A drum set, and other gifts not to give to children.
• Phenergan’s Wake
• I don’t have to use a walker to pump my gas.
• She was, in fact, too next to me.